RAPID VALLEY - With the opening of the new Rapid Valley water treatment plant, the oldest rural water system in South Dakota now has the most up-to-date water- treatment system in western South Dakota.

After several years of planning and one year of construction, the plant began processing water for Rapid Valley Sanitary District customers one month ago.

"It's a boon for Rapid Valley to have this new treatment plant, especially for future growth," said Jim Jester, general manager of the sanitary district. "If we want to put in 400 homes, we don't have to worry about capacity."

Completion of the water treatment plant has been a goal of the sanitary district for almost 10 years, according to Anthony Dupont, chairman of the district's board of directors.

"We used to produce 80 to 90 percent of our own water," Dupont said.

The sanitary district has contracted for water with the city of Rapid City for several years.

"The city has been a good partner of ours," Dupont said. "We have worked together for many years.

But, with its own treatment plant, the district now has control of its own destiny, Dupont said.

"Hopefully, we can keep costs down by producing our own water," Jester said.

The sanitary district serves 3,300 customers or about 10,000 residents.

Demand for water has increased an average of 5 percent annually since the water system was formed in 1962.

"We only have 53 to 54 percent of our district developed," Jester said. "We have a lot of room to grow."

A $4.88 million USDA Rural Development Loan financed the water treatment plant and a water intake on nearby Rapid Creek and the pipeline to bring water from to the plant on Teak Drive.

Rapid Valley received the first water loan made by a Department of Agriculture agency in South Dakota in 1962, according to rural development specialist David Adrian.

That first loan, from the Farm Home Administration, was for $490,500 to drill a well, reservoir and water mains to supply water to 500 customers living in a 3,000-acre area east of Rapid City.

"We're proud to serve them and proud to help them," Adrian said.

Adrain said the Rapid Valley project was one of the "best flowing" projects that he has worked on in a long time because of the coordination between the water system, engineers, contractors and the interim financing partner Wells Fargo Bank.

"Everybody really worked together," he said.

Jeb Rieb of CETEC Engineering Services was the construction supervisor on the project. Rieb said the microfiltration system used in the treatment plant is high tech and unique in South Dakota.

"There might be a few East River," he said. "I'm pretty sure this is the first one in western South Dakota of this caliber."

Housed in an 11,000-square-foot building, the water treatment plant has a capacity of 2 million gallons a day and was built for expansion.

The treatment plant employs state-of-the-art Pall microfiltration technology. The contained system is very compact and fully automated.

"What I like about this system is that there's no open water," Jester said.

Water flows through hollow-fiber filtration modules, which remove particles and microorganisms from the water.

The modules are housed in two units called skids. Each skid has 48 modules.

The treatment plant was built with expansion in mind. The addition of a third skid would boost the plant's capacity by 1 million gallons.

Once the water leaves the skids, it is disinfected with ultraviolet light and treated with chlorine and fluoride.

It takes about five minutes for water to pass through the treatment plant, according to Rieb.

"It filters instantly," Jester said. Some water systems can take up to 30 minutes to treat water.

Underneath the plant is an 110,000-gallon clearwell where water is stored before it leaves the water plant.

"We get a really good product in the end," Rieb said. "The quality is absolutely fantastic. It rivals bottled water. It's the best water you can get."

Water that is a byproduct of the filtration process is cycled through a separate system, then recycled into potable water.

"We have virtually no waste," Rieb said. Only about 1 to 2 percent of water that enters the plant is lost, which is phenomenal, he said.

"With the drought conditions, that's what you want," Jester said. Some treatment systems will lose up to 20 percent of their intake.

A sophisticated computer system allows the water plant operator to monitor the entire Rapid Valley system, Jester said. The system monitors water levels in storage tanks, the operation of the water treatment plant and the intake.

The treatment plant and a new water intake on Rapid Creek represent only a portion of the improvements ahead for Rapid Valley, according to Jester.

"Next summer, we're going to put in a 2.5 million-gallon storage tank and infrastructure," he said.

The new storage tank will be near Valley View Elementary School. The project is being coordinated with Pennington County's plans to rebuild Reservoir Road.

With the completion of the second phase, sanitary district will have invested abouty $7 million to provide Rapid Valley residents with water.

"We've come a long ways," Jester said.

Contact Andrea Cook at 394-8423 or andrea.cook@rapidcityjournal.com